


I'll Be Your Lighthouse

by countrygirlsfun



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alpha Laura Hale, Alpha Talia Hale, Alpha Werewolf Stiles Stilinski, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Friends, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Female Stiles Stilinski, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Love Confessions, Pining Derek, Slow Build, The Hale Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:17:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countrygirlsfun/pseuds/countrygirlsfun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the first time they met Derek has been protecting Stiles, well, trying to. </p><p>But life continues to show him he can’t protect her from everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Small Beginnings

Who needs friends? They’re not all that important. Derek doesn’t understand why his mom worries so much that he doesn’t have any outside the pack. Derek doesn’t care that the only people at his eighth birthday party last week were his brothers and sisters and parents and weird uncle Peter. But since his mom is insisting he make more friends he’s at the school playground, on the weekend, to spend time with kids his age.

Derek doesn’t get it. He sees, and ignores, these people all week in school, why would he want to do the same thing on the days he doesn’t even have to be at school? But he didn’t whine, just went along with it; he can feel how serious his mom is about this. So now he’s sitting on the swings waiting for the motion sickness to pass before he can try and get as high as he can again.

He’s just about to start swinging again when a tiny little girl walks right up to him and sits on the swing next to his. Her long brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail that’s mostly falling out and Derek is subjected to her big brown eyes when she turns to look at him.

“Hi,” she says with a smile, “I don’t like swings very much. They make my tummy hurt.”

“Mine too,” he answers without thinking. She looks confused at his answer and tilts her head to the side.

“Then why are you swinging?”

He shrugs; he doesn’t want to explain that the swings he can do by himself and doesn’t need anybody to play with him on them. She shakes her head at him like he’s dumb and jumps off her swing to stand in front of him.

“I’m going to build sandcastles, wanna help me?”

Yeah, no.

“No thank you. I’m going to swing.”

She shrugs like it’s no big deal, says, “okay,” and runs off to the empty sandbox.

Derek figures he should get some points from his mother on that one. He interacted with someone and didn’t growl at them or glare at them until they went away. He watches the little girl get started on whatever she’s going to build and starts to swing again.

Back and forth, higher and higher, he swings until he hears that same little voice yelling. He looks over at the sandbox and the little girl from before is no longer alone and it looks like what she’d built up got smashed flat. He digs his feet into the pebbles and stops when he hears her yell a second time for them to stop. He doesn’t even think about not helping her with whoever decided to bully her.

And when he gets off the swing and starts walking over there he sees they’re not even as old and tall as he is. They’re still there and still saying things that has the girl getting madder and madder and if Derek concentrates he can smell that underneath her anger the bullies’ words are hurting her. Once he realizes this probably isn’t the first time these boys have picked on her Derek decides it’s going to be the last.

He walks up and puffs out his chest standing as tall as he can and puts on his meanest glare that even makes his teacher leave him alone. Now that he’s closer he can see the girl has sand all over her side and a cut that’s oozing fresh blood. They actually _hurt_ her and it takes a lot of effort for Derek to not growl at them until they go away.

“She asked you to stop,” he says, voice angry and maybe a little growly despite his best efforts.

But it’s worth it to watch the two boys still and go pale in fright. He doesn’t smirk like he wants to, instead he steps forward getting between them and the girl. The one boy with blond hair doesn’t step back though but stands up to Derek.

“Why do you care?”

Derek steps forward again and this time the blond does step back away from him.

“She’s my friend and you’re bothering her. Next time, I won’t ask so nicely,” he growls and smiles when the boys run away smelling strongly of their panic.

He turns around, a little nervous that the girl will be afraid of him too but she’s just staring at him eyes wide in awe.

“Wow,” she breathes. “Nobody ever stands up to Jackson.”

“Well someone should. He hurt you.”

She looks at him funny.

“He did?”

“Your leg is all scratched.”

She looks down and then looks back at him with more calculation than a five year old probably should be capable of.

“Does this make us friends?”

Derek tilts his head to the side thinking it over. They could be friends, he supposes. Nobody has ever asked him that. He doesn’t talk in class and everyone already knows not to try and share crayons with him. He can’t help it if they all smell wrong. They don’t smell like pack. He shrugs after a moment.

“Maybe. I don’t have any friends.”

“Me neither,” she shrugs.

“Why not?” he asks, puzzled. She doesn’t have the same reasons as Derek to not be friendly. And besides, she was the one who talked to him on the swings, she’s clearly not against talking to people.

“They told me my name was stupid, so I told them _they_ were stupid. I mean, they’re 6 and I’m only 5 and I can already read better than them.”

“What is your name?” he asks but she just looks at him with narrowed eyes.

“Stiles. They all call me Stiles now.”

Stiles? What kind of name is that? Are they teasing her with that name? He doesn’t want her to be teased.

“It’s short for my last name, Stilinski,” she explains before Derek can ask.

“I’m Derek.”

“Do you want to play in the sand now?”

He shakes his head because he really, really hates sand.

“No, it’s itchy and dirty.”

And it smells like cat pee. Seriously, who wants to spend time with sand. It’s all scratchy and stinky and it doesn’t actually make sand castles. But maybe humans don’t think that. Maybe they can’t smell all the animals that have used the sand as their personal litter box. He’ll be kind of sad if Stiles doesn’t want to go play somewhere else with him. She’s the first person he hasn’t instantly wanted to leave him alone.

So it’s relief he feels when she shrugs those little shoulders again.

“Okay, what do you want to do?”

He starts walking away from the sand box and she follows him. He starts walking towards where he knows his mom is sitting at a picnic table watching his every move.

“I really like playing in the woods. But I mostly do that alone when I’m home and my mom wanted me to make a friend.”

He looks back at her and she smiles as she skips forward to catch up to him.

“I like playing in the trees too! What do you like to play?”

He shrugs because he doesn’t think he’s supposed to tell her that he hunts rabbits and squirrels just for practice. Or how he tries to run through the forest without making any noise as he tries to sneak up on his sisters. He doesn’t think he can tell her about when he lets his wolf out to practice controlling his senses. But his silence doesn’t deter her in the slightest it seems.

“I like to play Robin Hood. Or explorers. Oh! With two of us we could be Kirk and Spock! Like we’re exploring a new planet!”

Derek groans.

“You watch Star Trek? My mom watches Star Trek _all the time._ ”

But instead of being offended by Derek’s tone her whole face lights up when she smiles at him.

“ _Yeah_ ,” she enthuses. “I watch it with my mom. It’s her favorite!”

Perfect. Derek thinks. His mother really is going to love the friend he made today. At least, she better like Stiles because Derek kind of wants to know what it would be like to take her out in the woods with Laura and Cora and go exploring. By now they’ve made it to his mom but she’s too busy talking to a lady with brown hair and a nose like Stiles’. 

“Derek!”

His mother greets him with a smile and pulls him close next to her casually scent marking him with her hand on his shoulder.  And Stiles goes over to the other lady who picks her up and holds her on her hip. He watches Stiles put her head on her mom’s shoulder and rest it there.

“Did you meet Stiles already?” she asks and Derek nods.

“I was just talking to her mom, Claudia. Claudia and I used to be good friends before I got so busy with work and having you and your siblings.”

Derek just nods again not having anything to actually say which ends up being okay because his mom just keeps talking to Stiles’ mom anyway. Derek shuffles a little closer to his mom and leans against her side, suddenly tired of being outside in the sun. He peeks up and Stiles seems to feel the same way as her eyes are drooping shut while her mom holds her.

>>>><<<< 

Derek sits at his kitchen table and grumbling as he pulls out his second assignment of the night. Somehow being in middle school now means that he magically has all this time to get his, frankly alarming, pile of homework done. And that’s not even taking into account that Derek was practically forced to play on the middle school basketball team.

Well, he _wanted_ to play basketball but it’s all different now compared to how it was last year.

Sixth grade basketball was fun.

Suddenly, it matters now if you’re good or bad. And everyone on his team is already worried about being good enough to play on the high school team.

Derek doesn’t really care one way or another. He really thinks it’s his mother’s way to keep him busy for a few more hours after school. Because every day they don’t have a game they have practice. Which means his only free time is his weekends.

Which means his only time to see Stiles are his weekends.

He sighs, trying not to think about it too much because then he’ll just get distracted from his homework. He goes down the list of vocabulary words and tries to put his thoughts about Stiles in the back of his mind.

They’ve had a few years of being friends now. Seeing each other in the hallway at the elementary school, sitting with each other at lunch sometimes, and going over to one of their houses after school to play has been their routine since they met on the playground almost four years ago.

He may only be twelve years old but Derek already knows that things can’t stay the same forever.

Now, Derek goes to school in a different part of the building that Stiles doesn’t even _walk_ through. He has a locker now and his hallways are filled with smelly immature tweens that Derek doesn’t really like. They don’t share a lunch time anymore either, instead Derek has to just catch the faintest traces of her scent in the room after the younger group has already left.

And they can’t go home after school together anymore either because Derek has stupid basketball practice.

And Stiles…

Derek sighs and drops his pen. He looks at his completed assignment and finishes his thought.

Stiles wouldn’t be able to hang out after school either because she goes to the hospital every day now.

It’s been nine months since Mrs. Stilinski got sick and three months since she had to go to the hospital to stay. Derek visited a few times at the beginning but it didn’t take long before he was no longer a familiar face. His mom had to explain that night about what was really wrong with Mrs. Stilinski.

Since the first time Stiles had come over to the Hale’s, Derek has had to fight to spend time with her. His sisters became friends with her almost as fast as Derek had and liked to steal her away when she had clearly come over to hang out with Derek.

That night a few months ago their parents had to sit them all three down and explain to Derek and Laura and Cora all together. Claudia had a disease called frontal temporal dementia. She wouldn’t get better, even with a bite. And she would eventually lose her memory as the disease killed her.

At eleven Derek was glad he wasn’t too old to cry. He was maybe embarrassed that his sisters saw him cry but then they were all shedding tears as they held on to each other. Feeling such a sadness in the pack was something none of them had experienced. But his mom obviously had and between her and their dad, the Hale siblings were all comforted eventually.

That’s the biggest reason Derek doesn’t see Stiles much anymore and it just…it sucks.

His mom comes into the kitchen then, takes the briefest moment to breathe in his scent before she strides across the kitchen to pull him out of the chair into a hug.

They don’t talk about it. Not really. His mom just holds onto him until the odd feeling of loneliness settles into something he can handle. She pulls back placing her hands on his shoulders as she peers down at his face.

“I’ll call John and have her come over on Saturday’s, okay? She doesn’t need to be there all day, John can make time to go over and keep Claudia company instead.”

Derek nods in agreement, for the moment, hopeful for his friendship with Stiles.

>><< 

Once his mom enacts Stiles Saturdays everything starts going a lot better for Derek. Now he sees his friend at least once a week. He and Stiles spend time together out in the woods like they used to or they play video games together. Some days they sit on Derek’s bed and just read together in the quiet.

Stiles, for her part, was excited to start hanging out together again too. Derek could smell the anticipation and the happiness in her scent before he even got the front door open.

Of course, the way she ran up and jumped at him, arms going around his neck and legs around his waist was a pretty clear sign as well.

He didn’t care in the slightest just wrapped his arms around her and held on as long as she wanted to hug. That day they just sat in Derek’s room talking, catching each other up on their lives and what’s been going on.

Derek tells Stiles about Paige. How her parents are friends of his family; he’s careful to say family friend instead of pack connection because Stiles still doesn’t know his family are werewolves. Paige started at his middle school this year after going to elementary school at the other school in Beacon Hills. Derek was missing Stiles and Paige didn’t know anyone so their friendship evolved out of a mutual need for an ally in the middle school than anything else.

Surprisingly, though she didn’t say anything, Derek could tell Stiles was a little jealous after he told her about Paige and how they have all but one class together. It was an interesting realization that just made Derek scooch a little towards her in response. While he’s not the same kind of friend with Paige as he is with Stiles, he can understand a little jealousy.  He sees Paige every day; it took their parents arranging it so he can see Stiles once a week.

Instead of bringing up her feelings on the subject, Stiles tells him about her own friend that she’s made in her class. Scott McCall’s mom works at the hospital and he sometimes has to spend time there while she’s on shift like Stiles has to sometimes go to the station when John can’t find someone to watch her. They met while Stiles was waiting in the hallway for the nurses to finish changing her mom’s sheets and giving her medicine. In a story very befitting of Stiles, she’d talked at him until they discovered they’re at the same school, in classrooms right next to each other.

It’s Derek’s turn to feel a little jealous when he finds out Scott’s the one who sits with Stiles at lunch now and together they avoid Jackson and Matt, the class bullies. It should still be Derek there to protect her and make her laugh. The feeling fades to gratefulness when he realizes at least she’s still avoiding being bullied on a regular basis.

For the rest of the fall, Stiles and Derek spend every weekend together. Sometimes Talia takes them, along with Laura and Cora, places like the pumpkin patch, on hay rides, even ice skating at the ice rink once. Derek couldn’t be happier, the feeling of loneliness that sat in the pit of his stomach for months finally dissipating as he regularly got to hang out with his best friend.

Christmas was bittersweet as Stiles spent Christmas Eve at the hospital, but Christmas day, John worked a shift at the station so Stiles got to come over for the whole day. It was bittersweet because while Stiles was with them for the day, the first half of it wasn’t that great. Talia had gone and picked Stiles up from the hospital for John, the two were wishing Claudia a happy Christmas before spending their day apart.

Judging from the tear tracks and the bandage on Stiles face when his mom brought her home it wasn’t a good visit.

For a couple hours, Stiles, Talia and Derek sat curled up on the couch in the study. They did their best to simply off comfort as Stiles tried to calm down. Not that she didn’t deserve to be upset. Once Stiles was able to stop crying, Talia had pulled Derek out of the room to get Stiles a blanket and some food. It gave her a chance to tell Derek the story she’d gotten.

Apparently, Claudia began having delusions a few months ago. But the most prevalent one was that Stiles was the one trying to kill her. And this morning, Christmas of all days, she’d snapped and attacked Stiles.

Derek sat with Stiles while she ate and drank a little, doing his best to distract her. He just had to keep talking, as unusual as that is for him. He told her about their Christmas Eve and for a while until she was ready to face being a room full of people for Christmas lunch.

The whole family had made the trek across town to Nana’s house to have Christmas there. Even though Talia’s house is bigger and has more room for the large family to spread out, Nana wanted everyone at her house for the holiday. So Derek had suffered through a day of close quarters with his cousins and his sisters without having a place to escape to have even a moment of quiet.

He tells her all about how his cousin Malia dropped the bowl with the fruit salad, spraying jello and fruit all over the kitchen floor. Or how not ten minutes later Laura conveniently dropped the platter with the traditional fruitcake on it, making the only dessert for the evening pie and ice cream.

He talked and talked and told her a much of stupid things that had been happening with Paige at school until she was able to smile. Then he tells her about getting caught sneaking around the school at midnight by a deputy, completely convinced it was John and he wouldn’t be in trouble. Only to have the crabbiest, meanest deputy on the force find them and call their parents, scolding them the whole time they waited.

Which finally got a weak little laugh.

Finally ready to let herself be distracted and stop dwelling on what happened at the hospital Stiles lets Derek walk them out of the study and down to the main floor. By the end of lunch, she’s almost like herself again, laughing and teasing with Laura and Derek. they spend the afternoon watching Christmas movies, snacking on cookies and drinking cider or hot chocolate.

All in all the day ends better than it started though because Stiles sleeps over, curling up between Laura and Derek in the pile of pillows in the living room, warm and comfortable in front of the fireplace.

But as Derek lays there looking at Stiles bandaged face, he can’t help but think, she’s way too young to be dealing with stuff like this.

>><<

It’s a rainy day in February, Derek’s sitting in the living room watching Bones with his mom and Cora. It’s been horrible weather the past few days and Derek is getting kind of sick of being cooped up inside. He’s just about to get up and go for a run, weather conditions be damned when his mom’s phone rings. Something about the early afternoon phone call on a Sunday brings a certain ominous feeling to the room and Derek freezes as she answers.

Derek and Cora stay completely still when they hear John’s voice over the phone. Derek can’t hear what he’s saying and from the look of frustration on his sister’s face he’d guess she can’t either. But the way his mom’s face pinches in worry and she starts exuding sadness in her scent and Derek knows what John is saying.

His mom hangs up the call moments later with a sigh before she looks up at Derek with damp eyes.

“Claudia passed away. Stiles was with her while John was at work. Hospital staff lost track of Stiles while they dealt with Claudia. He’s already looked at security footage on the entrances and saw her leave but has no idea where she would have gone.”

Derek knows where she went. The hospital is backed by the forest that’s connected to the one he lives in. They used to talk about how it would be so much faster to get from there to his house if they went through the woods instead of through town. He’s willing to bet that’s where she went, trying to get to him.

It’s a gut feeling that he runs with, literally, running out of the room, through the kitchen and out the back door, ignoring his mother’s cries to stop. It’s stopped down pouring but the still damp conditions are going to make it harder to find her scent. But it’s not going to stop Derek from trying. He shifts as he runs, senses coming in clearer and sharper than ever as he races through the woods. He’s a little more clumsy than usual; he had a growth spurt that’s left him off balance and oddly, with less control of his shift.

He blames that for rushing towards Stiles still shifted. It didn’t take him nearly as long as he thought it would to find her; he sees her flat on the ground, sprawled in the leaves sobbing.

Tears prick at his eyes and his throat goes tight, hating to see her in such misery. She looks up at him as he makes sure to kick some leaves and step on some twigs to alert her of his presence. Her eyes widen in shock and Derek realizes he hadn’t shifted back completely, his claws and fangs still showing and eyes still glowing brightly in the dim forest. He shakes his head, pulling his features back to their human configuration and approaches Stiles.

“Derek?” she asks, voice weak and questioning and he nods and falls to the ground next to her.

“Yeah, I’m sorry you saw that and I’ll explain later just- Stiles,” he whines, arms twitching with his desire to pull her to him, “are you okay?”

Concerns about his appearance momentarily set aside her face screws up as the tears start fresh and she shakes her head. She leans towards Derek and he takes it as permission to gather her into a tight hug.

“My mom,” she says, quietly between sobs. “My mom died and dad- dad wasn’t there and Melissa wasn’t on shift and I couldn’t call you to come get me so I just ran. But I- I tripped and twisted my ankle and then you- you showed up and Derek. She’s gone.”

Derek doesn’t say anything just holds her, rocking slightly from side to side as she works through her tears. He knows from experience, unfortunately, that she'll need a few minutes to let the tears out before she’ll be able to stop, even temporarily.

He doesn’t care how long he sits on the wet ground, he just waits until Stiles pulls back, face damp and flushed from her tears.

“Can we go home now?” she sniffs and Derek nods.

He stands carefully, helping her as they go to not put pressure on her ankle.

“Can you stand?”

He watches her try to put pressure on her foot and wince, quickly bending her knee again and leaning into Derek’s side.

“No,” she mumbles.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he soothes, “I’ll just carry you.”

“Piggyback?”

“Sure,” Derek agrees and turns around, crouching down so she can climb on his back.

Now that he doesn’t have to worry about hiding his strength the hikes her up so her legs are wrapped around his waist and takes off towards the house. The rain, which had tapered off while he ran to find her, is starting to pick up again.

Unsurprisingly, they’re both completely soaked by the time Derek stumbles into the back yard. But then his mom is there grabbing Stiles from his back and pulling him along into the house and to the laundry room. She sets Stiles down, letting her lean against the washing machine as Talia grabs warm, dry towels from the dryer.

“Both of you, out of those wet clothes,” she orders, alpha command coming through in her voice having Derek scrambling to pull his clinging t-shirt off. He turns around, facing the wall instead of the room, even though his mom had put herself between him and Stiles, holding a towel up for good measure so they can’t see each other.

He hears the splat of Stiles’ clothes hitting the ground and then hears his mother wrap the towel around her and pick her up again, cradling her in her arms.

“Derek, shower down here, Stiles will shower in my bathroom upstairs. And then go straight to your room.”

Derek bristles at having Stiles taken away from him before his mother turns, a single look having him reigning himself back in. Only as he stands under the warm spray of water in the shower does he realize how cold he actually got. Not that he’ll get sick from it, but he’s definitely going to be sore from all the shivering he’s doing. Once he feels well and truly warm again he gets out and wraps up in the fluffy towel.

He darts upstairs, towel around his waist, as the rest of the house isn’t nearly as warm as the bathroom was after his shower. Once in his room he towels off quickly and pulls on his comfiest sweatpants and long sleeve shirt. Once he’s toweled off his hair so it’s only damp instead of dripping he rushes towards the door, eager to hang up his towel and find Stiles.

Okay, he’s more anxious about getting back to Stiles.

Not that he needed to worry about it because as he swings his door open his mom is there with Stiles.

“Now, you’re probably too old to do this, but given the circumstances, we’re going to ignore it for tonight. I’m going to go call John and let him know you’re staying here tonight, Stiles. Derek you’re still going to school tomorrow.”

With that she leaves, taking Derek’s towel with her and Stiles stands there fidgeting slightly before Derek grabs her hand and pulls him into his room. At fifteen it’s probably not the greatest thing in the world that he’s curling up in his bed with an eleven year old girl, but Derek doesn’t have any intentions beyond cuddles and comfort.

Besides, she’ll be twelve in a month, and in Derek’s mind she’s more like his sister than anything else, especially after their afternoon and what she went through today.

So it’s with no small amount of contentment that he pulls her down next to him on his bed, letting her arrange them so he’s the big spoon and she the little.

Once they’re comfortable, Derek says quietly, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

Stiles just swats halfheartedly at his thigh before settling more firmly in place next to him.

“You’re here now.”

Derek takes a deep breath and lets go of the guilt in his chest that’s been there since he found out about Stiles being at the hospital alone when it all happened. Going forward, he’s going to so his best to always be there when Stiles needs him. She’s been pack in his heart for a while now he realizes but now the rest of the family knows it too. Whether Stiles wants it or not, she’s got a pack behind her ready to help her however she needs it.

>>>><<<<

It’s been a little over a year since Stiles buried her mom. She learned the hard way that life is subject to change at the drop of a hat because it hasn’t been the same since she died. Where she used to spend hours and days at the hospital, keeping her mom company, now she has nothing to occupy her time. Nothing, except to go over to the Hale house.

After a week or two of going home every other day only to spend her afternoons alone, Stiles started just going over to Talia’s house everyday with one of the Hale siblings. It’s been a year since Stiles found out that the whole family are werewolves and she’s unsurprised to note that things really aren’t that different now that she knows.

Maybe it was her age, maybe it was the fact that everything was suddenly shifting around her already, or maybe it was a decent explanation for why the whole family seemed supernaturally beautiful, but whatever the reason, Stiles adjusted to the notion fairly quickly.

The more time she spent there the more involved with the family she became. She did her homework with Cora, read books and talked with Derek, sought advice from Laura and learned to cook from Talia. The only person who she doesn’t just have a ‘thing’ that she always does with them is Peter. Last spring Peter graduated from college and moved back to Beacon Hills. Knowing they’re werewolves makes it understandable that Peter spends so much time with the pack. She has to admit she kind of just tolerates Peter.

And she’s not a big fan of the girl he’s always out and around town with. Kate Argent is her name and Stiles doesn’t trust her either. The two times they met, Stiles couldn’t get past her cruel eyes and humorless smile. Stiles doesn’t know why but meeting her made her feel very uneasy for days afterward.

Some days she thinks she and Peter could be friends, but there’s always a little part of her, in the back of her mind that’s afraid of him. When she brought it up to Derek once he’d reassured her that most of the pack felt that way about Peter. There was something about him that just makes her uneasy. It’s probably his lack of moral fiber, she discovered after calling him out on stealing something from the grocery store. But all in all, he’s not that bad to be around. He even teaches her self-defense over the summer.

But right now, sitting at the dinner table with all the Hales staring at her she’d really rather be anywhere else than needing to answer Talia’s question.

It’s been a year of successfully hiding the fact that her dad fell into a bottle after her mom died. She just spent time with the Hales instead of home alone or watching him drink. And most of the time when Derek or Laura drops her off at home, either he’s gone at work or passed out on the couch. She was lucky for so long to not have to interact with her dad while he was wasted. At most she’d pull a blanket over him on the couch and take the bottle from his fingertips while he slept it off.

But last night he was still mid-drinking session, awake and _angry,_ when she got home early. She’d tripped up the stairs in her rush to get away from him after he’d yelled at her until he was satisfied. But when she fell, she didn’t get her hands underneath her in time to save herself from smashing her head into the stair.

Which is why she currently has a bruised temple that Talia is asking about. And the look on her face is doing more to tell Stiles that she has no choice in the matter of whether or not the explanation will happen. Stiles defers explaining in front of everyone to agreeing to tell Talia after supper in her study.

Which she does. Secrets spilling out about her dad that she didn’t ever think she’d tell anyone. But Talia has been like her second mom for a greater portion of her life and Stiles is tired of worrying if her dad is going to drink himself to death.

Talia, predictably, wraps Stiles in an embrace until her breaths are steady and she’s not on the verge of panicking any more. They sit for a few minutes and then Talia puts Stiles back on the couch next to her and then storms out of the room. Curling into herself on the couch Stiles waits for her to come back. Instead, a few minutes later, Laura comes in and plucks her off the couch like she weighs nothing at all.

Laura just carries her up to her room and then Cora and Derek are there too, surrounding her in what she’s learned to call, pack. It’s a comfort for all of them she knows because their presence calms her, and her presence calms the worry in them. Eventually, Cora gets up and puts a movie on but they all stay like that, wrapped up together on Laura’s bed until they’re all asleep.

The next day Talia sits Stiles down and tells her about what she did when she left Stiles in the study. Apparently she went to Stiles’ house and found John drunkenly watching a baseball game with yet another drink in his hand.

The good part is, all the alcohol got poured out and John got a lecture he is unlikely to ever forget. The bad part is, now he knows about werewolves. It wasn’t exactly intentional that she when in and started yelling at the sheriff, eyes still shifted red, but she tells Stiles she isn’t bothered by him knowing now if it means he got the message. She’d rather Stiles be safe in her home without dealing with an alcoholic father than to have the secret kept.

Knowing that the pack is there for her and has her back even in this is reassuring. She doesn’t expect things with her dad to improve immediately but she does know that if she needs it, her place here with the Hales will always be open to her.

>><<

A couple months after the Hale family found out about the Sheriff’s drinking things are looking up. Stiles is over less, but she’s also spending time with her dad now that he’s sober and trying to process his grief instead of drown in it. Derek is still used to seeing her at the very least for a few minutes after school though. He and Laura come over from the high school to where the elementary and middle schools are a few blocks away. Cora is a year below Stiles in grades so while Stiles is in seventh grade now, Cora is in the sixth. He and Laura go over there to pick up Cora every day and of course, the days Stiles comes over to their house she rides home with them all.

Laura is a senior and very ready to graduate and Derek is already sick of the teenage drama that comes with being a high school freshman. But, Laura at least, is at the top of the popularity chain, in large part because of her open, happy, funny personality, but also because she drives a Camaro. Derek thinks it’s a ridiculous car but he’s not about to complain about it.

It’s a Friday before a three day weekend and Stiles is supposed to be coming over for the break to hang out with Derek, but when he and Laura get to the school, Cora is waiting for them alone.

“Where’s Stiles?” Derek asks as he gets out of his seat to let Cora in the back.

But Cora just shrugs, “I don’t know, I don’t think she was in school today.”

Derek shoots Laura a look of concern, immediately worried about Stiles, an instinct that’s harder and harder to repress the older they get. But Laura is calm, which in turn helps Derek stop jumping to the worst conclusion, at least for the moment.

“Can you drop me off at home before you go check on her?” Cora asks as they drive away from the school.

Laura smirks at Derek and nods at Cora in the backseat. Derek’s nerves are calmed in the time it takes them to get from the school to home and then from home to the Stilinski house. The driveway is empty when they pull up. There aren’t any lights on in the house either, so for a minute Derek thinks they’re just gone somewhere for the weekend maybe. But as they get closer to the house he strains his hearing and finds himself listening to the familiar sound of Stiles’ heart beating.

He and Laura circle around to the back door and Laura drops her keys on the kitchen table as they pass through. Laura digs around the fridge and returns with three drinks while Derek grabs some snacks out of the cupboard. Food in hand they make their way up to Stiles’ room where they can hear her heart beating.

Derek hesitates when he sees her door is closed. At their house, you don’t walk in without knocking. Here though, he’s never encountered a closed door in the Stilinski household. He shifts things around in his grip so he has a hand free to knock.

“Stiles? You weren’t in school, are you okay?” he asks through the door.

At first the only response is an aggravated groan and when Derek breathes in he smells blood and he nearly panics before he realizes what’s going on. He opens the door and peeks his head in and around to try and see Stiles. She’s laying in her bed tangled in the blankets and Derek hears an actual _whimper._

“Stiles?” he prods again, hoping for permission to come in the room.

“If I ever hear you complain about your dick again I will personally remove it for you.”

Well, that’s. At least he knows exactly what’s happening now because he’s fairly certain Laura threatened the same thing a few years ago. Laura snorts and opens the door all the way to walk around where Derek is still standing in the doorway.

“How about we just avoid talking about my dick all together?” he suggests as he eases himself into the room.

It’s dark and quiet with the shades drawn and the only noise coming from Stiles’ laptop as it plays her iTunes softly. He closes the door behind him and Laura as she crosses the room, sitting on the bed leaning against the headboard after putting the drinks on Stiles’ nightstand. Derek drops the snacks off on her desk before turning to the bed and once his eyes adjust he sees how she’s laying curled up with a heating pad on her stomach and a towel on the bed beneath her. Laura is leaning over her a little, gently brushing her hair out of her face.

He’s pretty sure the guys in his class would be running away disgusted at this point but really. Derek has sisters and he’s a werewolf. He doesn’t really care at all about normal bodily functions or fluids. He walks over and sits at the end of the bed cross-legged.

“What hurts?”

“ _Everything_ ,” she whines. “My head, my back, I now know what cramps are like and trust me having children is so, _so_ not going to happen for a long time if this is only a preview of what that’ll be like.”

Laura laughs lightly again and puts her hand on Stiles' shoulder as Derek reaches out and wraps his hand around her ankle. His mom showed them how to pull pain from others if they got hurt. It shouldn’t be that different to do it for Stiles.

“Mom taught us how to do this thing,” Laura starts.

“Oh, in alpha lessons? How’s that going?” Stiles asks, distracted.

Derek shakes his head at her a little and starts pulling her pain into his body when he sees Laura start. Laura’s explaining what they’re doing and how both Derek and Laura are basically done with their ‘alpha lessons’ their mother began a few years ago.

It’s a weird feeling doing this. It doesn’t really hurt, it’s just more uncomfortable and can get overwhelming. He does his best to take the edge off how badly she’s hurting before he has to stop and take a breath. He looks up and Stiles’ body has lost all it’s previous tension and she’s laying practically sprawled across the whole bed loose limbed and sleepy.

As soon as Laura stops too they rearrange her in the bed a little.

After getting her resituated in the middle of the bed she slurs, “I feel. Like a puddle.”

Derek smiles a little as he tugs the top sheet out from underneath her and pulls the blankets off the bed completely. He fixes her pillows and she straightens out so her neck isn’t quite so twisted. She fixes the towel so it lays flat and Derek lifts the sheet up so it fills with cool air and then lets it fall lightly on top of her. He can hear her sigh in relief or pleasure he doesn’t know but either one works for him, really. He gets her comforter folded up at the end of the bed in case she wants it later and retrieves the snacks.

But by the time he turns back around she’s most definitely asleep, Laura smiling down at her and Derek wonders how much of the day she spent curled up in pain that she was that tired. It’s not a comforting thought and Derek’s glad he could at least help. He leaves a water on her nightstand and straightens a little in her room before he and Laura leave, taking the snacks back downstairs with them.

Instead of going home, Laura decides they’re going to hang around until Stiles wakes up from her nap. They get themselves situated in the living room with a movie playing on the TV. After nearly an hour Stiles stumbles down the stairs and sits with them watching movie after movie until it’s almost 11:30 at night.

Derek’s felt kind of funny for the last few minutes. Like, something is pulling, stretching inside his chest and he can’t figure out what it is. Laura looks similarly uncomfortable when Derek looks over. All of a sudden those strands in his chest feel like they snap and he shifts immediately. Laura does too but when she does, her- her eyes are _red._ No. no no no. That means-

The front door slams open and the Sheriff walks in, panic fading from his features as he sees his daughter on the couch. Stiles stands and goes over to her dad who immediately pulls her into a hug.

“I thought- you were supposed to be at the Hale’s tonight.”

“I’m not,” Stiles says, “I didn’t even go to school today. Dad, what’s happening?” she asks seriously as Derek flings himself at Laura trying to understand the empty feeling in his chest.

“Stiles, Derek, Laura…” he says before he trails off shaking his head for a moment.

 

“There was a fire.”


	2. Down and Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things go a little differently after the fire than what you're expecting.

 

From an outsiders perspective Derek Hale is managing to keep his life together. Yes, he lost most of his family at the hands of an insane hunter who was dating his uncle. And yes, it was awful trying to move on with life without his parents or his baby sister and having his uncle in long term care in a catatonic state. And yes, those wounds are still raw even three years later.

What those people don’t know is his ability to keep his shit together is entirely because he still has his sister. Without Laura, Derek wouldn’t have just graduated high school a month ago with his classmates. He also wouldn’t have applied for and gotten entrance into the Beacon Hills Technical College to learn how to be a mechanic. Without Laura he wouldn’t have kept his friendship with Stiles going.

Because right after the fire, right after he pulled himself out of Stiles’ and Laura’s joint embrace Derek wanted nothing more than to just be alone. He _felt_ alone. Losing almost all his pack bonds in one horrible day was one of the most painful experiences of Derek’s life. And for a while he just wanted to be as alone as he felt.

Laura gave him exactly three days to sulk in the forest before she found him and dragged him back to the empty Stilinski house. Her urges to yell and command as an alpha coupled with Derek’s renewed urges to submit to his new alpha meant that her shouting match quickly ended in tears. But, sitting there wrapped up with his sister he noticed something.

He may have lost some of his strongest, most fundamental bonds, but he still had his sister. And he still had Uncle Peter. And he still had Stiles. As they comforted each other right there on the Stilinski’s couch Derek felt those bonds and their presence. And the more he focused on their presence the less he felt the absence of the others.

It ended up taking a few months to get back on their feet, but Stiles and John were only too happy to keep them around and give them a safe place to stay. In the little spare time he had, John helped Laura find an apartment that should probably be called a loft for its size. It was the whole top floor of a newer apartment building, in a safe part of town, with a secured entrance and a parking space for both of them.

Laura had to spend time with Deaton, after inheriting her mother's powers so traumatically, working on how to curb some of the more powerful alpha urges. How to be content with Derek and Stiles as her betas and not want to go around biting people took a lot of practice with the emissary. At the time of the fire she had had only a month before graduating. Given her consistent near perfect grades and exceptional participation records the school granted her permission to basically do whatever work she could get done and they’d keep her grades all the same and let her graduate.

She took a while to just get used to life as an alpha and life without her family but after about a year she started working in one of the martial arts studios in town. Two years later and she’s one of their best instructors. The discipline and the physical activity did more for Laura’s control than any of Deaton’s methods ever did.

If they weren’t already best friends, after the fire Derek has to admit that Stiles is really his best friend. It isn’t that big of an issue to him. She’s been such a big part of his life for so long now that it seems only natural to feel the way he does. As he’d approached graduation though it started to dawn on him how different things were going to be now.

He wouldn’t be in the high school every day anymore. He wouldn’t see her in the hallway or have lunch with her nearly every day or catch her scent in a classroom. And part of him would miss that, yes, but he also knew that he’d still see her. That she would come over to the loft after school just like she has for the past two and a half years. The Sheriff Stilinski isn’t going to miraculously not have to work all the time now and be at home to spend time with Stiles. So Derek knows he’s still going to see her when she comes over to avoid her empty house.

No, what Derek is worried about is Stiles being alone in the high school. Things have gotten better since middle school, yes, but her class is still full of shitheads. He’s worried about what could happen now that he isn’t there to back her up if and when she needs it. Scott has good intentions and he’s gotten better about making Stiles a priority alongside his girlfriend but he isn’t the best protector.

But the summer goes by just like a dream and suddenly he’s starting his classwork. He doesn’t have a job, mostly because he doesn’t need one yet. It’s only a couple weeks later and Stiles starts school too. If he didn’t already just know that today was her first day of school he would have figured it out pretty quickly on his own.

Stiles _smells_. Not being immersed in the building 24/7 anymore makes the scent of the high school almost overpowering. So many people and emotions and scents in general all layered over Stiles’ own scent that it almost makes him lightheaded.

He must have made a face when she walked in because she just winces and raises her hands in placation.

“I know, I know,” she says tiredly, “I smell like the unwashed miscreants that attend Beacon Hills High. I actually left a bag of clothes in the Jeep all day so I could shower and change.”

Derek nods a little, trying not to seem too enthusiastic at the idea, as she walks through the loft, dropping her backpack and carrying her duffle bag towards the bathroom.

“I’m just going to use your stuff, okay?” she continues as she walks away from him.

He’s glad she can’t see him any more when she says that because he has no idea what his face is doing at the moment. The idea of Stiles smelling even a little bit like him is oddly exciting and calming at the same time. Exciting because she has to know what that means, what it could mean. And calming because it settles something in Derek that he’s had to deal with for the past few years.

That something being his feelings for Stiles. Some not so platonic, dangerously possessive at times, hopelessly romantic feelings for Stiles. He should have known this would happen, should have anticipated it. How many books and poems and movies are out there depicting the childhood friends becoming high school sweethearts and finally living happily ever after? He should have taken them as the warning they were clearly meant to be.

Stiles has been his best friend for years. She knows him. She knows his flaws, knows his insecurities. She gets his humor and matches it. Stiles is just as smart as he is, if not more intelligent and she doesn’t stand for his bullshit. She’s loyal and devoted and kind to the people that matter to her. She beats even Derek with her feelings of insecurity but even that gets balanced out when they talk it out together.

But dating someone three years younger than you is mildly frowned upon while in high school. And now, to complicate things further, he’s legal and she isn’t. It isn’t really a problem for Derek to wait though. He doesn’t want people looking down on Stiles or treating her differently, which they surely would do if she was openly in a relationship with him. He also doesn’t want to cause John any grief either. Because the legal issue would be a real issue with the sheriff’s daughter.

Waiting isn’t an problem to the logical side of his brain. It’s his more wolf like instincts and feelings that get all butthurt that he can’t have the companion he wants. That he can’t make Stiles smell like him all the time and let other people know that he gets to be with her grates on that part of him. It’s a little uncomfortable to be at odds with yourself in such a distinct way. He thinks humans feel this way sometimes when they’re at war with themselves or their decisions. But werewolves feel it so differently, it’s like he doesn’t feel right in his own skin. Like there’s something missing and something wrong.

But it’s when Stiles does things like this that make Derek want to say screw waiting I want to be with you _now._ He throws together sandwiches for the both of them and plates them up with chips and some strawberries. He’s just grabbing a couple of drinks from the fridge when he hears the bathroom door open.

It’s like his body moves on auto pilot then as he puts the drinks on the counter by the plates and walks over to the bathroom. Stiles isn’t even fully through the doorway when Derek gets there and pulls her into his arms. He takes a few deep breaths, rubs his cheek against her throat and then just basks in how good she smells now. He comes back to himself when he hears Stiles mumble from where she’s relaxed into his hold.

“Can you become a werewolf just from overexposure?”

He pulls back a little, taking in her drowsy expression as she blinks up at him.

“No, not really,” he admits. “Why?”

“Well,” she starts and starts walking towards the kitchen, “like this. I know I couldn’t _really_ smell the layer of ‘school’ on me but I feel so much better now that I’m clean and probably smell like you a little.”

Derek has to try very hard to keep his pleased rumble internal. Stiles smells more than a little like him now and it’s just delightful. He shrugs and grabs the plates off the counter and Stiles grabs the drinks.

“I think it’s just over exposure to our habits probably. Goodness knows Laura and I aren’t shy about telling you when you smell to us.”

She laughs a little tiredly and Derek again has to keep his happiness internal. He loves making her laugh-

Oh lord.

He _is_ smitten. Actually 100% irrevocably smitten with Stiles Stilinski.

As he sits and listens to her recount her first day back at school while they eat their sandwiches he can’t help but remind himself, he really doesn’t mind.

>><< 

Stiles comes into the loft one day, nearly two months into the school year, looking pensive. She moves slowly and precisely but it’s all out of habit, she’s not being careful at all. Her mind is a million miles away and Derek takes the opportunity to stare from his chair by the window.

She looks fine. She’s not hurt or hurting given her posture. He can’t smell any pain or embarrassment or emotional turmoil that usually accompanies a bad day for Stiles. She just looks…contemplative. Like she’s found a new puzzle and is having trouble fitting the pieces together in her brain. She drops her backpack by the door after she closed it and shuffles towards the couch before dropping down in the very center spot.

He leaves her to it, knowing from experience not to interrupt her train of thought lest she forget something vital to the mystery. Instead he gets up and walks to the kitchen to grab something for them to snack on. By the time he comes back out to the main room of the loft with drinks and a bag of pretzels she’s no longer staring at the wall. The TV is on and Netflix is loading up.

Derek sits next to her on the couch, passing her one of the drinks, knowing that when or if she wants to share what puzzle she’s working on now she’ll start the conversation. They’re on their second episode of Bones when she pauses it and gets up to get her bag.

“As a werewolf, can you tell what a bruise is from?”

“It depends,” he answers, shrugging. “Why?”

She sits back down next to him and opens her bag, pulling out her homework.

“Scott needed his inhaler so I ran to the locker room to get it. It _should_ have been empty but this kid, Isaac Lahey was in there. I only got a quick look because I was more focused on getting the inhaler, but he didn’t have a shirt on. And there were…a lot of them.”

She’s obviously worried about something, and theres probably more to it than what she’s saying but he’s pretty used to being her sounding board. If she needs more from him she’ll tell him. As it stands it doesn’t feel like she needs a response from him, especially when she just starts the episode again and gets to work on her homework.

Between school and keeping Laura from biting anyone Derek doesn’t have time for much else besides hanging out with Stiles at the loft. By Christmas break Derek knows she’s pretty much made herself her own group of friends at the school. Not that he’s met any of them yet, but she talks about how she thinks Isaac’s being abused by someone. Or she’ll mention Erica had another grand-mal seizure this time in gym class. How Lydia finally agreed to be lab partners in chemistry so she won’t fail. Because for as much as Harris hates Stiles, he loves Lydia.

The only downside is Stiles no longer spends every afternoon with Derek. Now she has a whole group of people to make time for. He’s busy enough that he doesn’t mind it all that much and he is glad that she’s not alone at the school anymore on the days Scott and Allison become completely self-absorbed.

It’s a few days after Christmas and the three of them are hanging out. Derek and Stiles are on break from school still and Laura took a couple days off work to binge watch NCIS all together. They’re all three somehow squished onto the one couch and have been for most of the day. The sun has long set and the loft is dark as they sit there watching Gibbs and the team stop another terrorist while munching on popcorn.

Stiles phone goes off suddenly; a quick series of messages one after the other. She grabs her phone from the coffee table and Derek hears her heart rate skyrocket when she reads the messages. She scrambles to get out of the tangle of limbs on the couch and rushes over to her shoes.

“Stiles what-“

“It’s Isaac. His dad- his dad,” she stammers while putting her shoes on before she shakes her head at them.

“We have to _go,”_ she tells them with a sense of urgency that gets both wolves off the couch and to the door.

Derek drives, Stiles is in the back and Laura is in the passenger seat yelling for an explanation. But Stiles is on the phone with her dad and then she only has a few blocks to explain that Isaac’s dad has been abusing him. That she had an unsuccessful attempt at trying to get Isaac to talk about it that ended with an open offer to listen or help whenever he needs it.

Well, now he needs it. Derek pulls up outside the house Stiles gave him the address to and before any of them can get out, a tall boy with curly hair runs out of the house. Backpack and duffle bag in tow, the boy hardly slows down as he flings the door open and gets in the back with Stiles.

“Drive,” he says in a loud but shaky voice.

Derek does, but not before he sees a furious looking middle aged man storm out of the house and shake his fist at the car as he yells. Derek glances in the rear view mirror before turning off the street, looking from the bruised and bloodied teenager to the man still yelling in his front lawn.

They get Isaac back to the Stilinski house, where John is already waiting for them. Derek and Laura just stick with introductions getting a, “yeah, Stiles talks about you all the time,” from Isaac in response before they leave. It’s not their business yet and they’re just extra people with emotions that might make it harder on Isaac.

It all pans out within a week and Isaac becomes a ward of the state, until he the emancipation papers are all filed and accepted. Isaac’s dad gets arrested for child abuse, child endangerment and assault. Isaac gets a police escort to his house to collect his things and then back to the Stilinski house. Stiles had pretty much insisted that Isaac stay with her and John.

It’s silly how well things go from there. Isaac starts coming over with Stiles to the loft, immediately hitting it off with Laura over their mutual love of black clothing and classic rock. Eventually with Isaac came Erica, who was a whole different bundle of teenage angst and energy. Her seizures and Isaac’s long term malnourishment make it hard to wait in offering them the bite. They both have such potential for it to make their lives better; but Laura and Derek figure, she’s waited this long, it won’t kill her to keep waiting little longer. 

Before long the loft no longer smells only of Derek&Laura&Stiles, but of the five of them, like pack. Even before Laura offers them the bite, the chance at really being pack, Derek recognizes the teenagers as part of his new pseudo family unit.

So when Isaac is emancipated, Erica has turned sixteen and the Sheriff reluctantly gives his okay to bring the teenagers ‘in the know’ and let them choose, Laura sits them both down to explain things. It takes nearly an entire weekend of questions and explaining and only some light persuading from Stiles before Laura sends them home to think.

The next day they both come back, ready to accept Laura’s offer. Luckily, the full moon is in the middle of the week so Laura waits until Friday before she gives them the bite. Much to Derek’s displeasure, Stiles is right there with both of them, literally holding their hand through the process. If it was up to Derek, she wouldn’t even be around the newly turned wolves for weeks.

He might have a fledgling trust between these people in general. They’re welcome in the loft with Stiles even if Derek and Laura aren’t there. He trusts them in his space and with his stuff. But none of that is as important as Stiles is. And that’s beyond him having a crush. She is too vital to him, his control, because she is so ingrained in his idea of pack. Romantic feelings aside, he would be just as protective of her.

So having her around new betas is so not okay with him. But after two full moons of them staying mostly in control and fully contained with Laura’s help and Derek’s supervision he’s a little less reluctant when Stiles is around them nearly 24/7.

He realizes, when finals week hits, that it’s been months of having a pack again. Movie nights and days spent working on projects and homework together. Laura taught Erica to drive and got both Erica and Isaac into the same martial arts gym she teaches at. Stiles tried teaching them all to bake even the simplest things until it was ultimately decided that she was in charge of the kitchen forever.

It’s only a few more weeks of school for the rest of them and Derek’s thinking about all the things they’ll do together once summer hits. Camping, trips to the beach, or a lake. He’s trying to keep his mind off sleeping under the stars and on his studying when his phone chimes.

**I’m gonna go visit Uncle Peter for an hour. <<  
But then I’ll be over. Okay? <<**

The messages from Stiles come back to back and Derek just responds enough to acknowledge receiving the message. It’s not that odd of an occurrence; they all go visit Peter once or twice a month. Granted, Stiles goes less than Laura and Derek do, but she still goes.

Laura comes home twenty minutes later and after that, Scott, Erica and Isaac show up with another teenager in tow. Through being introduced to the kid, whose name is Boyd, supper where they ate all the leftovers from the fridge and a couple episodes of Criminal Minds Derek is sufficiently distracted. It isn’t until his pack leaves and his phone starts ringing Derek realizes, Stiles never showed up.

Looking back, he should have realized something was wrong to have John calling him so late. Maybe if he’d been a little aware it wouldn’t have been as much of a shock to hear John tell him the worst thing Derek could hear.

“Peter is missing. And so is Stiles.”

 

>>><<<

 

Derek’s out in the woods. The moon is high in the sky, full and bright through the leaves of the trees. He’s on the forest floor, sitting with his back propped up against a wide tree trunk. His legs are stretched out in front of himself in a wide V. He’s happy, he’s relatively calm, most importantly he’s in complete control of his wolf.

He can hear the sound of his pack running around in the woods, playing sardines he thinks. He closes his eyes and tips his head back against the tree resting, waiting for…something. The leaves on the path to his right rustle as someone walks towards him. With his instincts turned up to 11 he should have startled at the least or jumped up in defense at most. But he’s still calm when the person approaches him and sits with him.

She’s lean and a fair bit shorter than him so when she sits between his legs and leans against his chest, her head rests neatly on his shoulder. She’s talking to him, but he thinks the words are unimportant compared to the sound of her voice. It’s a comfort, like home and pack and family. It soothes the constant ache in his chest where his family used to reside in his heart.

They just sit there for who knows how long, her talking, him listening. She asks him to shift into his beta form and he does, unconcerned of her possible judgement. In fact, she spends a long time running her fingers  through Derek’s hair, stroking his ears, running her thumbs across his cheekbones, and inspecting his hands and claws before she’s satisfied.

He may be the one holding her but somehow it’s what makes him feel safe. With her there with him he feels whole and loved and accepted. It fills up his chest until he feels like he’s bursting with the feelings and there’s only one thing he wants to do. 

It’d be so easy. So easy to just lean forward, duck his head and kiss her. Even if he just kissed her neck, peppered kisses from those lovely collarbones up her long, slender neck to where he knows her pouty full pink lips are.

But the more he tries to lean forward, the further she gets from him, fading further and further away. He tries to stop, tries to go back to the feeling of her in his arms and being content.

 

 

Derek opens his eyes.

He stares at the ceiling of his new bedroom as the feelings from his dream fade away leaving him feeling more empty and alone than ever before. It’s not the first time he’s dreamed of Stiles in the three and a half years she’s been gone.

Missing, officially.

But the pack knows now that Peter hadn’t been as catatonic as they all thought. And once he was healed enough, he kidnapped Stiles and took her somewhere far away. Stiles' phone was found in Peter’s hospital room and the Jeep was in the parking lot so they had no means or method of tracking their movements at all.

He lays there in his bed wishing he still had Laura to help him through these times of crushing loneliness. But her loss is another part of the ache now.

The pack had grown, in both wolves and humans, after Stiles went missing. Boyd was bitten after the next full moon and Scott was officially let into the big secret from both sides. He learned that his best friend grew up with a pack of werewolves and that his girlfriend grew up in a family that hunts them.

That had almost been a problem for Derek, having Allison Argent so close to being a pack member. But the first time she approached Derek and Laura she was so genuinely distraught over what her aunt had done, and after a careful listen to her steady heart they were willing to offer a little trust.

So a little over a year after Stiles and Peter disappeared, the whole pack, Derek, Erica, Isaac, Boyd, Scott and Allison were all just waiting on Laura to get back to the loft so they could start celebrating the end of another school year. Instead, their alpha stumbled in the door, pale and weak, before collapsing in Derek’s arms. They’d called for Deaton but once he examined her all he did was shake his head before telling them there wasn’t anything he could do.

Derek held his sister as the poison in her system wreaked its damage in her body. He cried mostly silent tears, even as the pack surrounded them, trying to keep each other from falling apart. With everyone there she spent her last minutes begging the pack to help Derek once he became the alpha. To help him through his grief and the surge of power and not hold what he does in the beginning against him.

They all agreed with her; brokenhearted to lose their friend, and worse, to watch her die.

Derek just held his sister. His last remaining family that he had. His parents, his other sister, Peter, even Stiles were all gone. Derek would be the only Hale left. He thought he’d never feel more alone than in the moment after Laura stopped breathing in his arms.

But as he lays there in his bed, in the house Laura had started to build on their old property and he saw to completion, savoring the tendrils of happiness from his dream he thinks this is worse.

He’s entirely unsurprised when Erica and Boyd burst in wide eyed and scared to tell him.

There’s another alpha in town.

>><<

It’s been two weeks of this ‘other alpha’ being in town. At first Derek didn’t want to even find out who it was, as long as they minded their own business and passed through Derek didn’t want to get his pack involved.

When the alpha powers transferred from Laura to him it filled him with an unknowable sense of power and desire for control. It was like being high sometimes because he didn’t always feel in control of _himself_ let alone the situation around him. It was in that haze that he bit Scott.

Scott had been entertaining the idea of accepting the bite a few months after finding out about werewolves in general. Erica had done the most in convincing him into wanting it at some point because of its potential to cure Scott’s asthma. Given how much it had changed her life, in ridding her body of epilepsy she had the most impact on the boy whose disease grew worse all the time.

So between the haze of power and Scott having a dangerous asthma attack out in the woods too far from a hospital and with an empty inhaler, Derek had bitten him.

Hours later Derek threw up, disgusted with himself for having turned Scott against his will but Scott had sought him out and assured Derek that it was alright. He had been adamant that he was grateful to Derek not angry or even upset. It took a while for Derek to accept but with Scott folding right into the pack as if he’d been a beta all along it was hard not to.

After the haze and the power high faded, the pack brought another classmate to him who was asking for the bite. Jackson Whittemore was not someone who needed the bite for any health reasons. Or even family situations. He didn’t _need_ the bite at all. One too many lacrosse tricks from Isaac and Scott had gotten the boy curious. Between himself and his girlfriend, Lydia Martin, they pieced together what was going on.

Derek refused initially.

His memories of Jackson stemmed back to that first playground meeting between himself and Stiles where Derek had put himself between Jackson and Stiles. All through school, Jackson had never wasted an opportunity to tease or belittle Stiles and he doesn’t want to let a bully into the family he and Laura built.

As if reading his thoughts Scott pulled him aside to explain quietly that since Jackson found out he was adopted he’s been different. That Scott assumes he’s looking for a family of his own and not one who lied to him for so long. And that Lydia, while not asking for the bite, is looking for a family as well as her parents only dote on her to aggravate each other now that they’re divorced.

Derek had mentally cursed Scott and his puppy eyes but relented nonetheless.

He agreed to consider it after a trial period was met. Jackson and Lydia were added to the group throughout the summer and all the pack outings they had already planned. Much to Derek’s surprise, they fit right in with the group. Jackson took some time to adjust to being friends with Scott and Isaac instead of competitors. The transition in his thinking was smoothed by the wolves pointing out that it took a supernatural upgrade to even come close to Jackson’s talent on the field.

Lydia, for her own part, fit the group easily. Her and Allison were already close friends and once Erica realized the devious side of Lydia’s brain the three girls were thick as thieves, keeping the boys on their toes the entire summer.

Reluctantly, Derek admitted that the two would be a logical conclusion to finish building his pack. Lydia didn’t want the bite, just the family, but Jackson still wanted to be equal with the other betas. So Derek bit Jackson and officially the two were pack a few months into the teenager’s senior year.

They’ve had peace so far, not even a stray omega through the Hale land to deal with. And Derek has his hands full with so many betas to watch over now. It’s all the more reason to avoid this new alpha Derek feels. He doesn’t know if he can protect all of them, doesn’t know if he can beat another alpha if they fought.

But two weeks after they first noticed his presence, when Boyd gets attacked after closing up the ice rink, the decision gets made for him. Now he has to face this alpha, _wants_ to face the alpha because Derek realizes, as he watches his friend almost bleed out on Deaton’s table, Stiles isn’t the only person he could be wildly protective over.

 

A few hours later and Derek walks into the appropriate clearing with Scott, Isaac, and Jackson at his back. He’d much rather have Boyd and Erica there too but Boyd’s still recovering and someone needed to be there to watch out for him in case the alpha has more betas than they already know about.

After Derek knew Boyd was going to heal completely, he had shifted and followed his nose until he found a trail left by the alpha. Following the scent trail it finally, _finally_ clicked in his brain who he was smelling.

Peter.

Peter was back and from what Derek could tell, just from the scent’s left in the building it looked like they were staying in, he had two beta’s with him. Derek had left his uncle a note to meet him in the Preserve to discuss the terms of his being on Derek’s territory.

So now, with Isaac, Scott and Jackson he’s at a little bit of a disadvantage having two newer betas and Isaac as opposed to all five wolves he could have. But, even with the disadvantage of the newer wolves, they still outnumber Peter and his two betas.

Peter melts out of the shadows and Derek finally sees his pack instead of just scenting them. The one to Peter’s left is a guy who looks close to Derek’s age. He’s a little taller than Peter but has narrow shoulders and skinny hips. He honestly looks like a strong wind could probably knock him over but Derek knows werewolf strength can be hidden in the smallest of bodies.

On Peter’s right stands a petite girl that seems oddly familiar. It’s probably the clothes reminding him of Erica’s first few weeks after being bitten. The girl has black leather heeled boots on with a pair of the shortest shorts Derek’s ever seen. Her shirt is less of a shirt and more of a corset leaving her shoulders bare and Derek feels cold just looking at her. Her long brown hair is loose and pulled over one shoulder. She examines her manicure looking mildly disinterested and Derek doesn’t get a chance to see her face from her stance in the shadows.

Derek doesn’t really want to listen to his uncle monologue so he flashes his eyes and flicks his claws out when Peter stops.

“Leave. This is your one free pass.”

Peter smiles and Derek can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness as its nothing like the uncle he remembers growing up with.

“No. No I think I’ll stay. Seems you have a nice little pack built up for yourself now. I think, instead of leaving, I’ll just take it.”

Derek roars as he shifts and both his and Peter’s betas rush towards each other snarling. Derek knows he can’t just rush his uncle and hope he wins so he approaches slowly and soon enough they’re circling each other. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Scott and Jackson taking on the male and Isaac going against the girl.

Scott and Jackson seem to be a match for the other beta who seems more panicked than anything. But Isaac and the girl haven’t landed more than a handful of blows each. They both have fresh blood on their skin in places but the wounds have already healed. Quickly, though, Derek has to focus on his own fight as Peter starts his attack.

Derek knows he’s outmatched against his uncle. It’s all he can do to simply block every other move his uncle throws at him. In no time at all he’s bleeding heavily from his side and he’s winded from dodging all of Peter’s attacks. Peter trips him up and lets him fall before he pauses looking around the clearing. Derek does the same and sees the male beta lying motionless and Scott hovering over Jackson who’s writhing in pain.

When Derek turns his head back to Peter he’s right there in Derek’s face and Derek can’t react fast enough before Peter leans in and fists his hand in Derek’s hair. He claws at Peter’s arm as he smashes Derek’s head into the hard ground until he’s so dizzy he can’t coordinate his own arms. Peter laughs and releases his hold on Derek. He tries to get his arms underneath himself to get up and keep fighting but his arms are noodles and black spots are swimming in his vision as he collapses back into the dirt.

Peter’s saying something, Derek can hear him talking but he can’t quite make out the words. He doesn’t think Scott or Isaac is in any condition to rush to his aid so he’s pretty much expecting it when Peter turns back around murderous gleam in his eye as he stalks back towards Derek.

He doesn’t expect Peter’s other beta to throw herself between the two of them. Derek watches hazily as the girl fights against her own alpha using the injuries Derek already inflicted to her advantage. But Peter is stronger and faster and has her pinned against a tree with a clawed hand to her throat in moments. Derek watches the beta slash at the arm keeping her from getting any air until she slumps abruptly in Peter’s grasp.

Peter loosens his hold and bends his elbow getting right in the girl's face, no doubt promising either death or punishment later. Derek struggles to get an arm underneath him and just manages to get himself propped up on a single arm when he sees the beta twitch in Peter’s hold and then in a flurry of movement she’s got Peter on his back on the hard forest floor. Derek watches her wildly attack her own alpha until finally Peter stops moving.

Only then does the girl deepen the cuts severing Peter’s jugular and windpipe before collapsing herself next to his body. Isaac is at Derek’s side now and Derek gladly accepts his help standing up. Once he’s on his feet, Isaac helps him over and they find Peter’s body is well and truly lifeless. Derek turns in genuine confusion to the beta gasping for breath next to his former uncle. He kneels down next to her and thinks again that something is familiar about her. Her scent is all wrong but something about her face or her voice reminds Derek…

“Why?” he croaks out, voice rough from the shift and the fight. He has to know why, and how, a beta would turn against her own alpha, her own pack.

The girl smirks at him, breath hitching before she says, “Couldn’t let him kill you, Sourwolf,” before promptly passing out.

Derek reels back in shock. It’s like getting doused with a bucket of cold water. Fuck, _no one_ called him that but Stiles. He stands quickly and regrets it because he’s still lightheaded and dizzy. Isaac’s still standing there looking confused.

“What did she say?” he asks, bewildered.

Derek shakes his head as he looks Isaac over quickly.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere still?”

Isaac shakes his head, eyes wide now at Derek’s reaction.

“I need you to carry her. We’re taking her to Deaton.”

Isaac nods not willing to argue and Derek turns to deal with the rest of the mess in the clearing. He checks again for a pulse on Peter and finding none moves on to the second beta. Scott and Jackson probably didn’t mean to kill him but they did. By the time he gets to his other two betas Jackson is sitting up on his own steam and Scott stands up to help get him on his feet. Derek strides over quickly and puts a hand on each of their shoulders, feeling for himself that they’re alive and mostly whole.

“I need to take her to Deaton, can you guys bring the beta and Peter’s body there for me so Deaton can deal with them?”

It’s a question but it’s not a request and they both know it’s an order. They both nod at him, though, deferential in a way they never are outside of adrenaline filled situations. He turns back and sees Isaac already walking back towards their cars with Stiles cradled in his arms and hastens to catch up.

By the time they get to Deaton’s Derek is feeling completely healed. He’s a lot steadier on his feet but his mind is whirling because Stiles’ heartbeat did nothing but slow on the drive to the clinic. He rushes to pull her from the backseat of his car and into his arms bridal style as Isaac rushes in front of him opening the door.

Deaton is there holding open the mountain ash gate and Derek strides through quickly.

“It’s Stiles. Peter still had her. She killed him but not before he had slashed her to ribbons,” he rushes to say, words tripping over themselves as they leave his tongue.

Deaton doesn’t look as surprised as Derek feels but he gets to work right away so Derek doesn’t do much but hover panicked next to the exam table while Deaton works.

>> <<

Stiles wakes up slowly. Honestly, she wasn’t expecting to wake up at all. She’s laying on something cold and hard and she doesn’t think she’s in the forest anymore. She squints against the bright light above her and groans when she tries to open her eyes. There are hands, then, lightly cupping her face and something gets in between her and the light enough that she can open her eyes a little.

It distracts her from the burning in her muscles that means she’s still healing from Peter’s mauling. The burn is sharper than it usually is like someone did something to help the process along. She blinks away the fuzziness in her vision and tries to take in the truth of what she’s seeing. She has to be dreaming because it’s _Derek_ standing over her, concern written in every line of his face and that’s just not possible.

“Derek,” she breathes in question and watches his eyes widen before he leans down and presses his forehead to hers and closes his eyes. He whines like he’s the one in pain and she tries to bring a hand up to try and sooth him somehow but she flinches when the movement sends a stab of pain through her. Derek whines again and moves his hands off her face to her shoulders holding her down and from moving again as he leans back slightly.

“Stiles, it’s- it’s really you. You don’t- you don’t smell right.”

Stiles rolls her eyes at him. He would get hung up on that. She fixes him with a look and his confusion transforms to understanding and they both say, “Peter,” at the same time because it explains it without having to explain anything out loud.

Peter always knew tricks and maneuvers to be the sneakiest son of a bitch around. Stiles knew he put something in her body wash so she didn’t really have her normal smell for a long time. She kind of expected Derek to see it was her even without her scent being there. Boy always did rely on the oddest parts of being a werewolf to understand the world around him.

“You’re a werewolf,” Derek says then and it’s not a question but Stiles nods and answers the one he doesn’t want to ask.

“He bit me a year and a half ago. He graciously waited until I got my GED before he did it.”

Derek sighs and brings his hands back to hold her face gently, sweeping his thumbs across her cheekbones. She’s helpless to lean into the touch.

“Show me your eyes?” he asks quietly.

She looks at him and lets her eyes glow and hears someone along the wall gasp. She lets the shift fade from her eyes and turns to see Scott McCall all grown up, face pale and worried. She looks back at Derek who looks pensive and anxious.

“What?” she demands to know and Derek shakes his head before he stands up from crouching over her.

“They’re red,” he says simply.

Simply, like he didn’t just change everything. Like she didn’t just get her best friend and her dad and her own life back only to have to leave town again because she’s a goddamn alpha. She can feel her heart speed up and Derek grabs one of her hands in both of his quickly.

“Stiles, calm down.”

She huffs out a laugh that sounds more like a sob and shakes her head trying to breathe slower.

“ _You_ calm down,” she snaps. “I just got you back. Just got my life back and now I have to leave again? I think I’m allowed to not be calm.”

Now that she’s focusing on herself and keeping her breathing steady she takes a better stock of her recovery. She wiggles and breathes and the burning in her muscles on her side and her arm where Peter had gotten her the worst is completely gone. She moves and shifts a little on the table and no shocks of pain go through her. She sits up on the table then and turns so her legs dangle off the side.

Head in her hands she pulls herself together. She can do this. She lived with Peter Hale for three years without succumbing to his efforts at Stockholm’s. Derek will just have to give her a day or two with her dad before he kicks her out of town. At least now she has control of where she goes. She probably won’t go far. And Derek will let her visit-

“Ah, Miss. Stilinski. You’re awake.”

Alan Deaton’s voice cuts through her depressing inner monologue. He must have been the one to treat her wounds and why she healed so fast. Or it’s the fact that she’s an alpha now.

“And an alpha,” she grumbles not lifting her head from her hands. Derek reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder offering a little comfort.

“I’m sure Derek and your pack will help you with the transition,” Deaton assures calmly and confidently.

Stiles looks up at him in frustration.

“My pack is dead. I don’t have a pack,” she growls and Deaton looks startled by her words more than her tone.

“I assumed you’d be staying here, this is your home after all.”

“I’m an _alpha_ ,” she stresses because honestly, he’s supposed to know everything about werewolves. Two alphas in the same pack doesn’t really follow the rules of pack hierarchy, right? At least, the way she’s always understood it doesn’t make sense for there to be two.

He goes back to his unruffled self though, at her words before he offers her and Derek a little smile.

“I don’t see how that’s an issue. Would you submit to Derek as your alpha?”

Her reaction comes from her gut and her heart and it’s an immediate response to turn to look Derek in the eye and firmly and without hesitation say, “yes.” Derek’s eyes go wide again like everything she’s doing right now is shocking him. And she can’t say she’s all that surprised. She would be a little hurt if he wasn’t at least a little thrown by her sudden reappearance. Then again, she spent the last three years missing him and her dad the most but maybe he got over her being gone. Maybe he doesn’t care if she stays or not. It occurs to her that she should probably give him that option.

“If he wants me that is,” she adds quietly and turns back around to stare at her hands very much unsure of everything that’s happening at the moment. Half a breath later and she’s standing, completely surrounded and held firm by Derek’s arms.

“Always,” he breathes. “Yes, Stiles can stay,” he says louder to Deaton. “How would it work?”

Stiles pulls back from Derek’s embrace slightly, giving him an almost watery smile before she turns her focus on Deaton to have him explain.

“In detail,” she requests and Deaton laughs.

“If Stiles submits to you, Derek, she becomes the second in command in the hierarchy. Very similar to a ranking beta, only, she’s an alpha. The betas will submit to you and you’ll be somewhat of a secondary leader to Derek. I would assume you would discuss exactly how it would work between yourselves maybe after you’ve seen your father and had a chance to recover from this evening’s events.”

Stiles sags in relief but just rests against Derek who bears her weight easily.

“As long as I can say,” she says looking up into Derek’s face from where she’s leaning against his chest, “we can discuss the particulars after I’ve showered and seen my dad?”

Derek nods and leans down to press the lightest kiss to her forehead before letting her stand on her own. Scott’s still standing there looking like he wants nothing more than to throw himself at her. Stiles laughs quietly, meets his eyes and opens her arms. She’s wrapped up in a classic Scott McCall Hug™ a moment later and is almost brought to tears again at how _right_ it feels.

She sniffs a little when Scott pulls back but he’s got tears welled up in his eyes too so she just smiles and looks back at Derek.

“Please tell me you have a place I can shower and change out these ridiculous clothes,” she says hoping she doesn’t have to see her dad for the first time in over three years dressed in Peter’s idea of a good outfit. Derek just nods with a smile and gestures a hand towards the door. She hugs a surprised Deaton as she walks past thanking him for keeping her alive and then walks out the door. She can hear Derek laugh under his breath as he follows her.

>><<

Stiles is here. Stiles is alive and Peter is dead and Derek has Stiles _back._ So she’s a werewolf and so she’s an alpha. There is nothing that he can think of that would keep him from bringing her into the pack. Hell, she’d be pack even if she was still human. She pauses after she gets outside looking around.

“Where’s the Camaro?” she asks frowning slightly.

“Erica drives it now,” he explains and guides her over to the Toyota with a hand on her back. Inwardly preening when she doesn’t so much as flinch at the gesture. Although, when he opens the door for her to get in the passenger seat, her grin makes him think he didn’t do a good job of keeping it an ‘inward’ thing.

But then it hits him that maybe she could smell his smugness. Adjusting to her having senses like he does might take a little while.

He gets in behind the wheel and takes off for the house. He knows Scott has everybody back there by now so they’re all waiting for him and Stiles to arrive. He’s mulling it over as to whether he should have waited until tomorrow for everyone to see her when Stiles clears her throat.

“I’m sorry about Laura,” she says softly.

It catches him off guard a little. But it follows that she’d want to talk about this just the two of them. This is probably the first and last time they’ll be alone together tonight if everything goes how Derek thinks it will.

“Yeah,” he breathes out after he takes a minute to just breathe. “Yeah, me too.”

“If- if it helps, Peter and I flayed the hunter who poisoned her.”

Derek tightens his grip on the steering wheel slightly and takes a deep measured breath to keep himself in control of the flood of emotions her statement produced. The relief that the threat to the pack has been dealt with. Satisfaction that the man who killed his sister, his best friend, his _alpha_ , died in immeasurable pain. Irritation that he hadn’t been the one to find the man before Peter did. Annoyance that Peter had Stiles help. Worry for what Stiles experienced with Peter for three years if killing a man was seemingly a part of it.

But he’s also grateful, grateful to know that Laura was avenged. That for as much as it’s upsetting him in the moment, he knows it’s another missing piece to him being able to put her death behind him and move forward with the pack unreservedly.

He doesn’t realize it’s been minutes of silence on his part until he’s making the final turn towards the house. He shakes himself from his thoughts and reaches across the console, leaving his hand palm up in invitation. Stiles takes the gesture for what it is and interlaces their fingers, holding Derek’s hand with her own trembling one.

“It does, Stiles.” He finally says quietly. He clears his throat, sounding a bit steadier when he says, “At least, it will help. Eventually. Thanks for telling me.”

She nods giving him a weak little smile and he squeezes her hand briefly before she turns to continue looking out the window. He can almost smell, under all her other warring emotions, anticipation. As they come into the clearing her eyes widen when she sees the empty space where the old house sat. But her attention quickly shifts to the new house and the cars in front of the garage. Derek parks next to Jackson’s Porsche and follows Stiles when she quickly gets out.

He doesn’t waste any time walking towards the house. It’s already late in the evening and if Stiles is going to see everyone and shower before they head over to see the sheriff, he doesn’t have any time to waste. Stiles walks in behind him and shuts the door behind herself. Derek watches her take a deep breath in and her shoulders tense before she even turns away from the door.

“Everyone’s here?” she asks, a little nervously he notices.

She stands there, hand still on the door knob and Derek puts a hand on her back rubbing a small circle between her shoulder blades trying to ease her tension a little.

“We can do this tomorrow, if you’d rather. You can just go right up and shower now and I can have them leave,” he offers, because really, it might be a better alternative. But she shakes her head.

“No, we can do this now,” she says, and Derek can just barely smell her resolve. It’s like Peter’s methods of scent repression work on her emotions as they happen. Derek has to put effort into not shaking his head lest Stiles think he’s disapproving of her choice.

She takes a deep breath and turns around, taking in the new house for the first time. She blows out the air she’d been holding in and reaches for one of Derek’s hands. Derek lets her take whatever comforts she needs from him and smiles when her lips quirk up at the edges as she takes in the foyer.

“You found Laura’s plans,” she says calmly as her smirk grows to a small smile.

He lets her lead them into the living room where the pack is waiting. Most of the time, when Derek comes home to a full house the betas are scattered between the rooms. But tonight they’re all standing, waiting in expectation. He lets Stiles stop wherever she’s comfortable and tries to reign in his sudden feelings of wanting to defend her from any remarks his pack could make.

He tries not to glare at anyone except Jackson. Jackson, while having come a long way from the snot nosed brat he was when Derek was still at the school, still has a tendency to say antagonizing comments when he’s uncomfortable.

But Stiles just takes another breath, sensing the pack’s concern and excitement and real happiness no doubt as it’s nearly rolling off them in waves. He looks over and the smile has faltered a little and her eyes are starting to look almost watery as she fights tears back.

“Hey guys,” she croaks, voice tight with emotion before she laughs at herself and sniffs back the tears. “I’m home.”

They all stand there grinning for only a moment before Isaac breaks and strides forward, pulling Stiles into a tight hug. He’s so tall and Stiles is still rather petite so when he stands after she gets her arms wrapped around his neck her feet are left dangling. It’s between one breath and the next before everyone is there, wrapping Stiles in an embrace.

It’s a group hug like no other. Derek actually is a little concerned with how tightly everyone has woven themselves together because he’s not really sure this many people should be occupying this small of a space. They all just stand there, taking comfort from being able to see and hold their friend after having spent three years worried on her behalf. But before anyone can get uncomfortable, everyone pulls back and stands back in the living room, giving Stiles both space and an exit should she need one.

It’s a moment that brings a smile to his face for the peace it gave him. Because that moment, that series of actions from the betas brought back memories of his own family. It’s one of those ‘look how far we’ve come’ moments. Seeing his betas, who at the beginning fought so hard against the instinct of pack and struggled to really master using their stronger senses able to understand when just enough comfort was enough and not too much too soon. It settles something in Derek, as he takes the moment for what it is, a small victory, a small reminder that he’s doing something right.

The girls stay towards the front of the group looking eager to help. Lydia, ever the leader, asks seriously, “What all do you need? Between the three of us we’ll have whatever you need in our rooms here.”

Derek watches Stiles smile at them briefly.

 

“Well,” she starts as she leans down and unzips her boots and pulls them off one at a time, a hand on Derek’s arm keeping her steady when her balance fails her.

“Shoes,” she says wiggling her toes on the cool floor in satisfaction as she reaches for the zipper on her stupid leather shorts. She peels them off her legs and steps out of them toeing them into the pile her boots started.

“Clothes would be nice too,” she laughs as she unzips the back of the corset and takes that off too leaving her in just a bra and underwear in the living room with her clothes all in a pile.

“Eye makeup remover and-“ she turns around to Derek’s stunned expression and suppresses a laugh when he maintains eye contact at all times.

“You have a fire pit out there in the backyard right?” Derek nods and Stiles smiles sweetly.

“Perfect,” she turns to Erica and points to the pile with both pointer fingers, “Burn these please.”

Stiles watches Erica’s eyes widen in disbelief and suppresses a sigh.

“Uh, are you sure? That’s a really-“

“Burn it all,” Stiles reiterates but she feels her eyes glow and Erica twitches at the command. She focuses on controlling her shift for the barest of moments, she always hated when Peter pulled crap like that and here she is not even an hour in to being an alpha and she’s already pulling rank.

“Holy shit,” she curses turning away from Erica towards Derek. “Wow, that’s real easy to let slip. Tell me it gets better with time.”

She waits for Derek to nod a little tightly before turning back to Erica with a guilty smile.

“I know they’re top of the line and super expensive but those clothes were always Peter’s idea and I don’t need any physical reminders of him.”

Her smile feels rueful when she taps a finger against her forehead.

“Got enough of those up here. I’m sorry for how I said it. I can do it myself after I get out of the shower.”

Erica just shakes her head though, having been mostly unfazed by Stiles’ order and smiles big and bright.

“No worries. I got it.”

Derek seems to have reached his limit of Stiles standing mostly naked in front of the pack because as soon as Erica and Isaac have her abandoned clothes gathered up between them he’s herding her up the stairs and towards the bathroom. Stiles starts the shower and sits on the closed toilet while she waits for the water to get warm.

Derek huffs his way out and comes back moments later huffing again as he puts, presumably, his bottles of body wash and shampoo in the shower and a pile of clothes on the counter that Stiles can smell are his. She’s actually really grateful for that because an alpha scent will be calming and Derek’s scent has always been comforting to her, even as a human. Right now she’s going to need all the help she can get to stay calm when she sees her dad.

Lydia walks in right after Derek and brings her make up remover and a pair of Toms that are exactly Stiles’ size. She also brings a sports bra that smells like Allison and underwear that smell like the package they likely just came from. Both Derek and Lydia walk out without another word, but while Lydia returns to the first floor, Derek stays right outside the door.

Stiles doesn’t say anything really, the idea of having him close is so overwhelmingly reassuring that she finds herself breathing easy. She takes a moment to look in the mirror. She considers what she looked like when she left. Short hair, no makeup, flat chest and wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Now standing here looking at herself in the mirror she can understand how Derek didn’t recognize her. Especially without her scent to help him. Her boobs finally filled in, her hair grew out (on Peter’s orders) and she was wearing leather shorts and a corset.

She doesn’t waste any more time though, stripping out of her undergarments and then uses the makeup remover to get all the junk off her eyes. Stiles has just stepped into the shower and has realized she has neither towel nor washcloth when she hears the door open and shut. The warm room fills with Derek’s scent and it further loosens the tension still in her shoulders. It’s the tension that isn’t going to go away fully until she sees her dad.

She’s just reached for the shampoo when Derek clears his throat from the other side of the shower curtain.

“I forgot to grab you a loofa,” he says quietly and she hears him sit down on the counter by the sink.

She sticks a hand up above the curtain as much as she can reach.

“Toss it here,” she says amused, despite herself.

The bath sponge hits her hand a second later and she catches it. She has to wonder if they just have a closet with extra everything because this too smells brand new and like a store. She reaches for Derek’s body wash and squeezes a liberal amount onto the loofa. She’s trying not to let her mind go into a tailspin of thoughts.

Thoughts of Peter being dead, having another death on her hands, getting used to her friends again this time as an alpha werewolf, seeing her dad, what he’s going to say, what he could do now that she’s no longer human, how he’ll feel about it all. She could be standing their worrying about what’s going to happen with her and Derek. How he’ll take hearing that he was the person she missed almost even more than her own dad.

Instead she starts singing in her head some old Kenny Chesney song that’s been stuck in her head for the last couple days while she scrubs at her body. She figures whatever Peter did was probably only skin deep so a couple washes should get rid of the majority of whatever he used. As soon as all the blood and dirt and grime have been washed away she reaches for the shampoo.

After she starts lathering it in her hair, Derek clears his throat again.

“I missed you, Stiles,” he admits and she hears more than feels her breath hitch. “This is probably not the time,” he continues quickly, “but at Deaton’s you seemed…unsure. You don’t need to- I don’t want you to try and explain things, anything, until you’re absolutely ready. Or if you need me to sit you down and make you talk you’ll have to tell me but the point is I’m not trying to start that conversation. I just want you to know that I have spent every single day since you disappeared missing you.”

She keeps washing her hair, trying to keep the soap out of her eyes and her breathing steady.

“Wishing and waiting for any sign that you were even still alive. Hoping that one day you’d come back and my pack would be whole again. You just, you were unsure if I wanted you to stay, stay in my pack. I need you to understand how much I want that. How having you here is exactly what I want.”

The best thing is Stiles doesn’t even have to say anything to that. She just knows that the scent of her relief and contentment and happiness is filling the small humid room enough that Derek knows she understands. She reaches for the body wash a second time and empties more onto the spongey material. She can hear his smile in his voice when he speaks again as she starts scrubbing at her skin a second time.

“I’m just gonna go talk to the pack, make sure everyone knows what’s going on and then when you’re done I’ll drive you to your dad’s.”

She nods and then rolls her eyes at herself and replies gently, “Okay. Thanks, Derek.”

Even through the shower and the smell of soap she can pick out the smell of his happiness. It gives her a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach that she hasn’t felt in a long time at having made him happy. It’s partly because he’s the ranking alpha and she’s appeased him but it’s mostly because Stiles remembers a time where Derek wasn’t happy ever. He had good reason not to be, but she knows how much shit has happened to Derek, mostly because she was there through all of it. And being able to be something that brings even a little bit of good back into his life is the best thing she can imagine.

After a thorough scrubbing that leaves even her alpha-fast-healing skin rather pink she conditions her hair quickly and hops out of the shower. A towel is waiting, neatly folded right next to her stack of clothes. Not wanting to waste any more time she dries off as fast as possible and pulls on her borrowed clothes. She never did get any taller and she got her mom’s build so while she’s average height she is fairly slender. Strong, but definitely lean.

So wearing Derek’s clothes, and he had to have bulked up after becoming an alpha because wow, means she is nearly swimming in them. She rolls the sleeves up a little but the neck is still loose and if she moves it the wrong way it would fall off her shoulder completely. The pants are another issue altogether but she just rolls them at the waist and then rolls up the legs so she doesn’t trip. She runs a towel over her hair briefly before she slides on the Toms, hangs up the towel and emerges from the bathroom.

She half expected Derek to still be hovering outside the door but she finds the hallway completely empty. Making her way back downstairs to where she can hear voices talking she finds Derek talking with Scott and Allison. They all look up at her and smile as she approaches; Derek’s more hesitant than the others.

“Ready for this?” he asks, clearly concerned.

“Yeah,” she nods, giving Derek something like a reassuring smile.

And then with one last round of hugs they’re back in Derek’s mom SUV heading towards her house and her father.

Who she hasn’t seen in over three years.

And who doesn’t know she’s coming.

She’s not ready for this.

>><< 

Oh Derek is so fucked. So, _so_ fucked it’s unbelievable. Her scent is back. And it’s mingling with his. And she smells like his body wash and shampoo. It’s the most wonderful, magnificent form of torture Derek has ever been exposed to. Because he already knows that any feelings he has for Stiles need to be platonic first. She needs an alpha and a friend before she needs a possessive, protective boyfriend.

It’s just so ha- difficult. It’s difficult when she’s right there. In the flesh, alive and healthy and in his clothes so painfully close and and. Huggable. Snuggle-able. Friends snuggle right? Platonic cuddles, in a bed, all through the night. That’s a thing right? He’s fully prepared to be laughed at but he’s going to ask to stay with her anyway.

The relief of her reappearance is still too fresh, too uncertain to his wolf-like instincts. He’ll be a lot calmer and get a lot more sleep tonight if Stiles lets him stay. She’s never really said no before but things might be different now. He doesn’t know the scope or the scale of what Peter put her through.

Three years is a long time with a mad man.

It gets worse once they’re in the Toyota again and the space starts to fill with their scents. He quickly tamps down his own feelings when he realizes that with the return of her scent, he can decipher her feelings so much more clearly now. They get about a mile away from the pack house before her scent turns sour with apprehension and stale with worry.

Not wanting her to panic he reaches for her hand again, much like the first time an hour ago, by leaving his hand palm up on the center console. She reaches out and grabs his hand, grip tight and anxious. The closer they get to her house the more the tension in her body ramps up. Her shoulders go stiff, her leg starts bouncing, she starts to bite at the skin around her nails and the grip on his hand gets tighter and tighter. She’s practically trembling when he pulls up in the driveway next to her father’s new county Sheriff’s SUV.

She goes still suddenly and without looking away from her front door, asks in a meek voice, “Did you call him at all? What does he know?”

Derek just shuts his car off and turns to her.

“He knows there was an alpha. He doesn’t know it was Peter.”

She nods, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back against the head rest as she takes a few deep breaths. Derek decides in that moment what he’s going to do and reaches across to squeeze her hand in comfort.

“I’m gonna go warn him, okay? I’ll tell him the alpha was Peter and when he asks about if you were with him you can walk in okay? That way we can avoid any surprise heart issues from him okay?”

She looks a little panicked at the last part before she’s nodding again and unbuckling her seatbelt to get out after him.

Derek walks to the front door and knocks. Stiles waits around the side of the garage out of sight; Derek hopes she doesn’t hyperventilate or freeze when he needs her to walk up. The door opens and John opens the door looking tired, like he’s been watching a baseball game for a while and about to go to bed.

“Derek, what brings you by? Did I miss a call?”

Derek shakes his head a little and takes his hands from where he’d stuffed them in his pockets.

“No, no I just needed to tell you-“

“The alpha!” he interrupts. “Did you find out who it is?”

“It was Peter-“

John’s eyes go wide in shock and he steps towards Derek smelling sharply of hope, hands extended eagerly towards Derek.

“Stiles? Was Stiles with h-“

John doesn’t get to finish because Stiles, who had started sobbing at the sound of her father’s voice, couldn’t wait another moment longer. She’d rushed forward cutting off John’s query and embracing him tightly still crying in earnest.

“Stiles,” he says, shocked, before wrapping his arms around his daughter.

“Daddy,” Stiles sobs and for a moment Derek feels like an intruder on their moment.

The feeling passes when Stiles reaches for him and Derek allows himself to be pulled into the embrace. Standing there, on the Stilinski porch with Stiles and John, Derek can’t help the hopeful feeling growing in his chest.

>><< 

Derek needn’t have worried about staying with Stiles on that first night. After Stiles and her father had worked through their tears of relief and John called in to get the next day off from work they were able to separate for a few short hours of sleep. When Derek had pretended to start to leave Stiles had frowned at him so furiously he stopped in his tracks.

She had just reached out and grabbed his hand to pull him towards her old bedroom. Since they were both already wearing sweatpants Stiles just tugged Derek down on the bed with her, made herself the little spoon and promptly fell asleep.

Derek also needn’t have worried about staying close to Stiles.

Officially, Stiles’ captor, Peter Hale, is now ‘missing’. The official report says that Peter was holding her somewhere in southern California before he vanished. Taking the opportunity to escape, Stiles had stolen Peter’s car and driven home. Only the people who matter know that Peter is dead and buried, never to wreak havoc on Derek’s life again.

Technically, Stiles lives with her father while they sort out the legality of her GED and get her re-acclimated with her hometown. In reality, Stiles is living at the Hale house for the foreseeable future. Derek was pleased to see how easily she took to her new alpha powers, even as a bitten wolf. Also, technically, Stiles had her own room, right next to Derek’s. But almost every night found Stiles and Derek holding each other.

Derek wasn’t going to complain. Not when he still has nightmares and he’s woken up to Stiles having nightmares more than once. Neither of them acknowledge it really, probably because they’re both just so happy to be in each other’s lives again.

 

>><< 

Derek comes home to a full house, it’s actually pretty wonderful. His betas are all sprawled out in the living room watching some awful show on MTV and snacking on what looks like…vegetables? Derek shakes his head. Stiles. A warm feeling of contentment rises in his chest as he walks through the room making sure everyone is there. He pauses in the doorway from the living room to the kitchen when he doesn’t find his alpha counterpart.

Before he can even ask where she is, Scott’s head pops up.

“She’s outside again.”

Derek sighs in frustration.

“Same tree?”

They all nod and Derek just shakes his head and heads through the kitchen and out the door to the backyard.

Stiles confuses Derek. She always has and she probably always will in some ways. Since her return this has become a curious habit of hers that Derek just cannot figure out. There isn’t a consistent cause. Sometimes it’s just Derek and Stiles, sometimes it’s the whole pack together or Stiles with another member of the pack. But she reacts the same way every time.

Everything will be going smoothly, Stiles’ scent will go sharp with relief and then she’ll excuse herself, take a walk, and end up sitting in the same tree on the edge of the tree line behind the house.

It’s been happening pretty consistently since she came back. Derek hasn’t wanted to push her, hasn’t wanted to possibly make her remember things from her time with Peter if she’s not ready to go there. But he’s properly worried now with how long it’s been going on.

So he walks to where he knows she’s perched and sits at the base of the tree in silence. She can probably already tell that he wants some answers if she pays any attention to the determination he knows is rolling off him. He hears a sigh (it sounds almost fond?) and then the leaves start rustling as she starts her decent. He looks up and watches her crawl down from her spot with a grace he knows she only has from becoming a werewolf. She jumps down next to him and doesn’t hesitate to sit down and just lift his arm to curl up into his side.

“You’re worried,” she says quietly.

“Concerned,” Derek agrees.

“I haven’t meant to make you worry,” she admits sounding remorseful.

He just shakes his head and tightens his hold on her.

“Do you remember explaining to me how your wolf feels?”

Thrown by the question a little Derek just nods.

“When Peter took me,” she starts slowly, “my only goal was to keep myself alive long enough to get home to you. To my dad. To Laura. To my pack.”

She takes a breath and Derek almost wants to stop her and give her more time before she tells him these things. But just as he decides that if she wants to talk he should let her, she continues.

“When he bit me, I knew that for as much as I didn’t want him to be my alpha, I had to accept him, at least temporarily, so the bite would work. I couldn’t risk dying because I was being stubborn. After the initial urges and instincts calmed the hell down it was almost easy not to think of Peter as my alpha.”

“At the time, I had Laura as my alpha, in my heart and my brain I knew that once I could get away from Peter that Laura was my alpha, was supposed to be my alpha. But living like that…”

She pauses and shakes her head sounding tired when she continues.

“It was just draining. My wolf knew Peter wasn’t my alpha but that for the time being I had to act like he was. It was like being constantly at war with myself, trying to just appease Peter and keep my wolf in check at the same time. But, now.”

She looks up at him then and holds his gaze as she smiles and explains.

“Now, Derek, I’m _home_. I have an alpha I respect and love and I have a pack that I trust and love as well. I have a family again and I’m not fighting with myself at all. After all that time with just Peter, it’s overwhelming, Derek. Being here, being loved, being at peace, it all just gets overwhelming in the best of ways.”

“So why come out here?” he asks gently and she ducks her head bashfully.

“At the beginning? Trying not to freak out or let any Peter memories overtake the good feelings. Now? Convincing myself this is normal. That I don’t need to be overwhelmed because it isn’t going to go away, I just need to get used to it.”

Relieved, Derek gently tips her chin back up so she’ll look at him.

“You better,” he mock threatens, “because it isn’t going to go away. Stiles I might fail at protecting you from bad things happening, but you can be sure that I will always be here for you trying anyway. I’ll always want you here and want you happy.”

Stiles smiles at him and cuddles back into his side, resting her head on his chest. They both know how this is going to end. They both know each other’s feelings about the other. But Derek will continue to keep his longing at a minimum until Stiles is ready. He’s already used to waiting, he couldn’t care less about waiting a little longer, especially if it means Stiles is completely comfortable.

And when she’s ready, Derek will be there to romance the pants off her.

Probably literally.

>>><<< 

Derek opens the door to the bathroom after his post-workout shower and his senses are immediately assaulted with the smell of chocolate. He hums a little under his breath and tamps down on the smile that’s threatening to spread across his face.

Stiles is baking.

Derek is excited, don’t get him wrong, he just wasn’t expecting Stiles to be baking dessert today. For one, she just made cookies _yesterday._ A chocolate cake and chocolate chip banana bread again today is not only a little bit of overkill, but it has Derek’s gut churning.

It’s been almost six months since Stiles’ miraculous return to Beacon Hills and Derek can’t help but be grateful for how smoothly it’s gone. After Derek got her to stop needing to run off and hide in a tree constantly she told him about her time with Peter.

Peter, ever the egotistical had basically used Stiles and his other betas as servants. If they wanted reassuring touches or approval they had to do things for him. Never sexual things, at least, Stiles wasn’t abused that way, but annoying things. Things like picking up his dry cleaning, making coffee correctly, wear these clothes, don’t cut your hair.

He hadn’t neglected Stiles’ education though, somehow getting her registered to take online classes to get her GED. In turn, once she completed the coursework, Peter took it as the opportunity to bite her. Derek has been around newly bitten wolves, he knows how easy it is to be…extra physical with them. As they adjust to their new strength and urges there is a certain inevitable level of physicality. Smacks, grabs, shoves. It all is unavoidable with new wolves. And Derek knows Peter wouldn’t have had the lightest touch.

Of course, in her explanations Stiles wasn’t exactly specific of exactly what Peter had done. But at the time, Derek had been satisfied with what she’d told him. He was sure that Peter hadn’t assaulted her or coerced sex from her; mental games and subsequent damage he can and will deal with if that ends up being the case.

After he gets dressed from his shower he goes downstairs to find out if he can have some of the dessert Stiles made. When he gets in the kitchen he laughs quietly at his pack. They’re all standing around Stiles as she finishes frosting the chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, just how Derek likes it. But they’re all almost literally salivating over the cake as they wait.

He doesn’t catch what Scott asks exactly but he hears Stiles’ timid reply loud and clear.

“Only if I can be in the middle of the pack pile.”

The betas don’t think twice as they nod and move to get plates and forks in anticipation of fat slices of cake. But Derek can finally see what’s been happening right in front of him clearly.

“Stop,” he rumbles and the betas and Stiles freeze.

“No one is going to touch that cake until I finish talking with Stiles for a minute.”

“But-“ Scott starts to protest and Derek lets his eyes glow red, not a command just a show of how serious he currently is.

“Fine,” he grumbles and Stiles looks at him confusedly as she walks through the pack to where Derek is.

He doesn’t take her somewhere in the house, choosing to get out of hearing range for this conversation. So they walk outside towards the tree Stiles used to climb to keep herself calm. Once they’re in the woods he pulls Stiles behind the tree so they can’t be seen from the house and crowds her against it.

“You do not need to trade desserts for cuddles.”

Stiles’ eyes go wide and her jaw drops.

“You do not need to _earn_ affection from your pack. If you want to bake cookies twice a day because you like to? Great. If you need a hug or a cuddle session? _Ask._ ”

Derek can tell from her scent, embarrassed, relieved, hopeful, that he’s right; she’s been serving the pack in the hopes of getting basic pack touches. He can tell from the tears glistening in her eyes that she’s listening, taking what he’s saying to heart.

“We all love you Stiles. Well, maybe not Jackson. But in different ways our pack, your pack loves you. Some…more than others.”

He ducks his head a little grateful his voice didn’t waver as he half admitted his feelings.

“Yeah?” Stiles breathes in question, looking so happy and relieved that Derek can’t help but mirror her small smile.

“Yeah,” he agrees leaning in, easy as anything and kisses her.

The kiss is sweet and slow and perfect. Derek kissed people in high school and college. Some of those kisses were bad and some were like fireworks. But kissing Stiles feels an awful lot like coming home. Like everything bad that’s happened to them can be dealt with because they have each other. His hands come up to cradle her face, brushing his thumb across her cheekbone as he pulls back and rests his forehead against hers.

“I love you, Stiles,” he says quietly into the space between them.

Stiles just smiles soft and genuine before pecking his lips one more time.

“And I love you, sourwolf.”

He groans and Stiles laughs, darting out from where Derek had her pressed against the tree, and runs back towards the house.

Derek snarls playfully and gives her a few yards of a head start before he takes off after her, tackling her into the grass. They roll together, a tangle of limbs and laughs until finally coming to a stop with Derek on top and Stiles wriggling beneath him. Before he can bend down to kiss her again the back door swings open and they both look over to the pack all standing there, staring at them with wide grins.

“So does this mean our alphas have finally gotten their shit together and admitted their feelings for each other?” Erica yells cockily.

“Damn right!” Stiles shouts back and Derek just rolls his eyes and kisses her again right there in the grass.

Sitting there, listening to his pack laugh and cheer and feeling Stiles next to him as he rolls off her he can’t help but think, for all the bad things that have happened to them, good things are coming.

Well, they’re already happening.

 

Derek can’t believe his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me if you liked it or leave kudos :) Or come talk to me on [Tumblr](http://www.acountrygirlsfun.tumblr.com/) :)


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